CINCINNATI — Maybe this was the kind of rally that the Mets could not mount for the first eight innings.
Maybe this was the type of rally that the Mets had not been able to mount all season.
Juan Soto launched a one-out, solo home run that brought the Mets within one. Pete Alonso reached on an error, Luisangel Acuña subbing in as a pinch runner. Brandon Nimmo singled, putting the potential game-tying run on second and the go-ahead run on first.
Alas, this was the type of rally that the club has seen too often this year: one that was not completed.
Starling Marte grounded into a game-ending double play that made the Mets 3-2 losers Sunday and 0-59 this season when trailing after eight innings.
Where did all that Grimace magic go?
“It’s hard to explain with the type of offense that we have,” manager Carlos Mendoza said in trying to understand the lack of late-game comebacks. “You would think that we should be able to get to some of the bullpen. But I’m pretty sure we’ll get some of them. Like I said, we’re too good.”
Last season, the Mets became known for their late-game heroics in a campaign in which they went 8-60 when behind after eight. The victory that clinched a wild-card spot in Atlanta on the last day of the regular season involved a ninth-inning comeback, Francisco Lindor launching a two-run home run to put the Mets ahead to stay.
This season, in which the Mets have hit plenty and have scored the ninth-most runs in baseball, the offensive outbursts have come earlier or not at all.
“We’re creating traffic, we just haven’t been able to get that big one late in games,” Mendoza said after the Mets needed a late-game rally because Hunter Greene blew them away for the early and middle innings.
Jeff McNeil’s groundout to end the top of the second inning represented progress for the Mets: The first five hitters to step up against the flame-throwing Greene struck out.
Greene cruised for seven one-hit, one-run, 12-strikeout innings in which he was touched once (a Brett Baty home run in the third) and not again.
The Reds ace walked Pete Alonso to begin the seventh, the first and only Mets leadoff hitter to reach base on the afternoon.
Greene might as well have shrugged. His pitch count rising into the upper 90s, he used a 99.6 mph heater to strike out Brandon Nimmo, 100.4 mph four-seamer to sit down Marte and 101.1 mph heat to overwhelm McNeil.
“The fastball obviously is electric, but when he’s able to land that slider for a strike, whether it’s a Strike 1 or to get chases and get back in counts, and then the split against lefties,” Mendoza said of Greene. “It makes for a tough at-bat.
“When he’s able to do that, he’s pretty nasty.”
